Discussion: Leading a Service Learning Strategy Project
While reading and learning about educational methods is useful and informative, carrying them out is invaluable. During the previous weeks, you have interacted with videos about service learning, case studies, and scholarly material aimed at helping you develop your own Service Learning Strategy Project. In this Discussion, you will confer with your colleagues about your progress. This discussion opportunity can shape your thinking about the components you are working on throughout the course, which lead to the completion of your Service Learning Strategy Project. Be sure to take full advantage of Learning Resources like the Toolkit for the Evaluation of Service-Learning Programs (Caswell et al., 2011) and the Service Reflection Toolkit (Northwest Service Academy, n.d.; assigned in Week 6) to construct your response.
To prepare
Review the Learning Resources for this week, and revisit the Learning Resources from other weeks, to assist you in synthesizing the information into your thinking regarding the challenges of planning for engaging instruction with service learning.
By Day 3
Post a summary of your thinking in which you do the following:
Describe an issue or challenge you have encountered as you develop your Service Learning Strategy Project and how you addressed the issue or challenge (e.g., buy-in from stakeholder groups, assessment of community needs, articulation of a vision for the service and learning components).
Share resources that have been particularly helpful for you and explain why.
Explain one or more insights you gained from the living case studies and/or videos related to Service Learning.
Explain how you see the evaluation of service learning conducted in all these examples.
Week 8: Service Learning for Social Change in the Classroom
I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.
—Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery
This week focuses on the obstacles you may encounter in planning successful service learning and how to overcome them. Educational innovations take time and careful planning to make real change. While service learning has the potential to increase engagement and promote social change, developing good plans, accessing community resources, and carefully evaluating plans can help avoid some of the common pitfalls presented in this week’s Learning Resources.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
Analyze challenges related to developing Service Learning Strategy Projects
Analyze resources needed to implement Service Learning Strategy Projects
Develop evaluations plans related to Service Learning Strategy Projects
Learning Resources
Required Readings
NSLC ETR Associates. Educator’s Guide To Service-Learning Program Evaluation. Retrieved from https://www.livingknowledge.org/fileadmin/Dateien-Living-Knowledge/Dokumente_Dateien/Toolbox/LK_E_EvaluationToolkit.pdf
Fullan, M. (2011). Change leader. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Change Leader: learning to do what matters most, 1st ed. by Fullan, M. Copyright 2011 by John Wiley & Sons. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons via the Copyright Clearance Center. Chapter 2, “Be Resolute” (pp. 27–48)
Morin, E. L. (2009). Service learning pitfalls: Problems you didn’t see coming. College Teaching Methods & Styles Journal, 5(1), 43–52.
Last Completed Projects
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